


Guardians Of The Babey

by aceswitchblade



Series: Harley Keener Vs. Space Itself [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Family Drama, Fluff, Harley Keener - Freeform, Multi, Tags Are Hard, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-07 04:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18866068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceswitchblade/pseuds/aceswitchblade
Summary: “I say we let it into space.” Rocket suggested.“I am Groot.” Groot agreed.“What is wrong with you?” Quill asked.(or when the guardians find a stowaway named Harley Keener and have no idea what to do. they'll figure it out.)





	1. Salad

Tony sat across from Nebula, carefully working on her robotic arm to make sure that every damaged part of it was fixed again. Her arm had been destroyed during a gig where she and the other “guardians” were being paid to kill some big monster.

“All fixed.” Tony breathed, wiping the machine oil off his hand on his pants. 

“Thank you, Tony.” Nebula said.

“Ah, it’s no problem. You can drop in for a visit whenever, even if it’s not for repairs or… rebuilds in this case.” He smiled as she wiggled her fingers to make sure the arm was fully operational. It had been half a year since Tony had single-handedly destroyed most of Thanos’s army, including Thanos. They matched now since said snap basically destroyed his entire left arm and his entire left side was badly scarred as well, but Tony acted as nothing had changed at all. He still smiled in his eyes instead of his mouth, and he was still the same man who put Nebula’s safety over his own as they drifted through space. They had created a bond that no other Avenger had with each other, even though Nebula couldn’t figure out if she still counted as an avenger, but Tony was like the father she never had. Thanos didn’t count.

“How’s the search for… your sister going?” He asked as dum-e nudged him with a revolting looking green smoothie. He took it and boldly took a large sip. Nebula’s lip curled up in disgust. 

“Nothing yet. We’re working on it.” Nebula thought she was doing okay, but deep down she was upset about how there still was no sign of Gamora at all. She could tell it was tearing up the team inside too.

“If you ever need any help with anything technical, you know who to come to. Except, Pepper would kill me if I went to space again.” He sipped more of the green sludge. 

“You’re going to die if you keep drinking that, you big idiot.” She said, ignoring him and spinning on her heels to walk out of Tony’s lab and back to the ship. She hoped that he didn’t actually try to go to space again because she believed him when he said Pepper would kill him. She was greeted by the bickering of her teammates echoing through the ship.

“I’m just saying, if you let me drive the ship, we won’t crash on anything,” Peter said, fighting over the captain’s chair with Rocket.

“Now listen, I have been driving this bitch for five years, so I clearly am the better candidate here. And I crashed her once. Only once!” Rocket held up a one with his small paw. Peter spotted Nebula and tried to get the head start on the chair, but Rocket saw what Quill was doing and they made it to the chair at the same time.

“Okay, now that everybody is here-” He said through gritted teeth, trying to get the raccoon out of the captain’s chair. 

“Where’s Thor?” Nebula asked, scanning the room. Groot was hunched over some game in the corner, and she could make out the silhouettes of Drax and Mantis in the other room.

“He went back to his town, something about responsibilities,” Rocket said, waving his little paws around. 

“As if we even needed him here.” Peter huffed, crossing his arms. Thor and him had the most annoying arguments over the pettiest things. Nebula was honestly glad he was gone. 

“I am Groot,” Groot said, not looking up.

“You’re right, but you really need to watch on your language, young man.” Rocket said, winning the fight against Quill for the driver’s seat. Nebula still had no idea what the tree was saying despite them knowing each other for a fair amount of time. The rest of the team seemed to know though. 

Drax and Mantis walked into the hull together, whispering about something and giggling to each other. Nebula didn’t know how to feel about the pair. She knew they were both idiots, but Drax was strong and so was Mantis. 

“We have a job.” Rocket announced, pushing a hologram onto the bigger screen. They each sat down and prepared to be hurled through space.

\------------------------------------------------

“That was the most disgusting thing that we’ve ever had to do.” The small animal said, wiping a bit of alien mucus from his fur and onto the ship. 

“Man, don’t get it on my ship!” Quill groaned as rocker shook off the rest like a dog.

“It is not just your ship.” Drax started, closing the airlock behind them. A loud crash followed by swearing interrupted him before he got the chance to speak again. They all went quiet. Peter mouthed for them to prepare themselves. They each readied their weapons. 

“Oh man, oh god…” The voice said from the kitchen. They ran to the kitchen. Peter motioned for them to stay back, but Drax and Mantis clearly didn’t know what that meant, because they still ran straight in and appeared to have knocked the intruder out. The rest of the team followed them cautiously. A kid laid on the floor next to a shattered bowl full of salad. The looked in shock. Drax and Mantis were very proud of themselves. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

“I say we let it into space.” Rocket suggested. 

“I am Groot.” Groot agreed. 

“What is wrong with you?” Quill asked.

“Who?” Nebula asked.

“Them!” Peter said, gesturing towards the rest of the team.

“I agree with them. It could be a spy. Or an assassin,” Nebula said, nodding.

“Have none of you seen a Terran teenage boy?! Or a Terran child?!” Peter asked, in complete shock. All of them shook their heads but Nebula. 

“I didn’t know all of them looked like that. I hadn’t met a Terran until about five years ago,” Nebula said. 

“Nebula, I’m Terran,” Peter sighed, rubbing his forehead.

“You’re Terran? I thought the robot said you were human,” Drax said, extremely confused. 

“They’re the same thing, dumbass. And she’s not even a robot,” Rocket snarled. Rocket and Nebula had grown closer during the five years after the snap. Rocket didn’t seem like the emotional type, but once he had opened up once, he just had completely opened up to her. They kept each other up in during each of their rock bottoms. 

“That’s a child?” Mantis asked, batting her eyelashes in complete innocence. 

“No, It’s a Terran,” Drax responded almost instantly. 

“Oh my god,” Peter groaned. “Did you knock him out, or did Mantis just put him to sleep?” Quill asked, looking at Drax and Mantis. 

“I put the child-Terran to sleep,” Mantis said. 

“Can you wake him up?” Peter asked. She nodded and woke him up. He jumped up, rubbed his head and looked back down at his salad. 

“My salad…” He pouted, rubbing the back of his head, messing with his brown hair. He seemed less upset about being knocked out and more upset about the wasted food. He brushed a bit of feta cheese off his overcoat and looked around. 

“I am Groot,” Groot stated, sounding irritated. 

“Oh, well I’m Harley, Harley Keener.” He said, sticking out a hand and pulling a black headband on his head with the other hand.  
“I am Groot.” He replied, not taking his hand. Harley had a surprised look on his face and took his hand back.

“Uh, you must be wondering why I’m here… or how I got here… or uh, whether or not you should just me back where I snuck on…” Harley nervously said, pushing a strand of hair out of his face. “But-“s

“Don’t worry about it. You can just stay here as long as you want.” Peter blurted out. This caused as much of an uproar as six people could make. Everyone seemed to have very mixed feelings. When the noise dies down a little, Peter noticed Rocket staring daggers at him.

“Quill, you’re coming with me. Now,” Rocket snarled, grabbing Peter as hard as he could and pulling him out of the room.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rocket snapped, understandably pissed off.

“How was I gonna say no, he’s a kid who probably left for a reason-” Peter replied.

“No. No. Just like that. We are adults. We do not want to know his reason. It could be the saddest little story in the world but we still would say no. We do not deal with children, got it?”

“What about Groot?”

“Groot is a low maintenance tree person, Quill!!”

“Well, maybe he’s useful.”

“The kid? He is a kid. He’s just a skinny kid from Terra.” 

“Well, I got taken in and I think it’s a-”

“Just because your stupid daddy issues made you a hero, that doesn’t mean anything about this kid,”

“Do you want to tell him he can’t stay?” This seemed to make rocket stop and fumble over his words for a moment. Before he could answer, Groot, popped in from around the corner.

“I am Groot!” He said, rather excited.

“And why should I come look at what the kid is doing?” Rocket said, rubbing his brow. Groot looked at them both and then scrunched up his face as if to say ‘just do as your told’.

“Fine. Come on Quill.” He grumbled, waving for Quill to follow. Low excited chatter came from the weapon’s room. Harley was holding a dangerous-looking gun in his thin fingers. 

“Rat! The child-Terran fixed your weapon!” Drax yelled a little too loud while throwing his hands up, causing Harley to shrink down onto the gun. 

“I have a name, you know.” He said, looking up at Drax with a pouty lip and angry eyes. Rocket had his mouth open and arms crossed, ready to protest.

“Let me see that.” Rocket demanded, holding out a hand from his crossed arms, trying not to act impressed in front of Peter. Harley carefully passed it over, obviously very nervous to be holding a big gun like that. Rocket carelessly aimed it at one of the targets in the room, and it worked better than it had before. To say he was surprised was an understatement, he was shocked and confused. He looked up at Peter (who had the ‘I told you so’ shit-eating grin on his face) with a slightly irritated and slightly surprised look.

“Fine. You win. But if anything bad happens to him or his parents kill you, I am not responsible,” Rocket said, sticking a finger in Peter’s face and putting the gun down on the floor with the other hand and then stomping off to the hull. Peter did a little fist pump and Harley just looked at them, confused on what just happened. 

“Come with me, weak child-Terran. I’ll teach you how to break an arm in one movement.” Drax said, putting a hand on Harley’s shoulder.

“Ooh, yes! I love this trick!” Mantis said, with a wide smile on her face. Harley looked like he was about to start sweating bullets.

“I… alright, this may as well happen,” He said, nodding and looking around. Nebula looked at them.

“I want to talk to him,” Nebula said, gesturing for Harley to come over to her. A look of relief washed over him. 

“Another time, then?” Harley smiled at Drax and Mantis.

“A time very soon,” Drax responded, not returning the smile, and walking away with Mantis on his arm. Harley stayed quiet for a bit.

“...Thanks for that, Nebula.” Harley sighed.

“You’re Tony’s, aren’t you?” She asked instantly, making Harley’s eyes go wide. “I never told you my name, but you knew it, and I only really know one Terran family,” she finished, looking him in the eyes. They had another moment of silence.

“You’re half right. I know him, but it’s not like I’m his child or anything. He only took care of me because he missed his stupid intern. It’s not like he actually wanted me there after the snap got reversed,” He ranted before realizing that he should change the subject. “So do you build? Or fix things?” Harley sat down at the table and started building something round with spare parts laying around.

“Yes, sometimes. It’s nothing more than a necessity,” She followed his lead, sitting down as well. 

“So I guess we're both mechanics in a way,” 

“You could say that. Despite how that’s a gross simplification,” That made Harley laugh a bit. Then there was silence. It wasn’t a bad silence in any way, it just was peaceful. 

“How’s it being in space all the time?” 

“You’re gonna find that out yourself,” 

“Assuming I’m staying, I sure will,” 

“Peter definitely wants you to stay and when he wants something, he normally gets it,” 

“Who’s Peter again?”

“The Terran, or human in your terms,”

“Who’s uh, everyone else?” Harley asked with an awkward laugh. Nebula knew that Harley fit right in with the rest of them, right then and there. They all were a little bit dumb, a little bit smart, a little bit of everything, and Harley seemed just stupid enough to be a guardian too.


	2. Moonage Daydream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley's left alone with his thoughts for a day.

It had been a week since the guardians had taken Harley in, and he seemed to be adjusting, pretty well. They didn’t let him fight anything yet, but he was just glad to be a part of the team. Most importantly, they had learned how much of a little shit he was but they still hadn’t thrown him out the airlock yet, so he was having fun.

He would train with Drax for an hour or two, hang out for a while, eat lunch, and then retreat into the weapons room for the rest of the day. Nebula would sit and talk with him as he built most of the time while Peter would blast his music from the other room. Him and Groot didn’t really hang out at all because of the obvious language barrier, but if other people were around he could normally guess from context. There was only one person that he couldn’t

Rocket. Rocket never seemed to like him, even from the beginning. Harley thought it made sense, he didn’t think he was that great either. The closest thing he’d gotten to a pleasant experience with the raccoon was a silent two and a half hours after midnight when Harley built and fixed things while Rocket sat at the other end of the table, doing the exact same thing. Harley had caught him glancing over at his work multiple times before he just said ‘Nice.’ and then left. That interaction had been bothering him for a long time, and he had no idea why.

“Harley,” Nebula pulled him out of his own mind. She was leaning in the doorframe of the armory. “It’s three am,”

“That means it's past your bedtime, Nebby,” Harley said, looking back at his project.

“I could say the same to you,” She said, sitting down next to him. “What are you making this time?” Nebula asked.

“Floaty skateboard. It’s a hoverboard, that's what it’s called, but I can’t seem to figure out how to make it work,” He said, propping his chin up with his hands.

“Let me see,” She ordered, grabbing what he already had done. She worked on it for a few minutes before the jets lit up an icy blue. Harley’s face lit up too.

“Holy fuck, how did you do that?” Harley asked, snatching it back.

“More than two hours of sleep. Now go to bed, idiot,” She replied, starting to walk away.

“Wait! I want to ask you something,” Harley called. Nebula stopped and looked at him and tilted her head to the side. “Does Rocket hate me?” He asked, looking into his hands. She was certainly not expecting that.

“Uh-” She stopped herself for a moment to sit back down. “He doesn’t know you. So, honestly, he probably doesn’t like you very much. Don’t take it personally,” Nebula was an honest person, so Harley knew that he could trust her to tell him the truth. “Is that all?” She asked, standing up again.

“Yeah, I guess,” Harley mumbled, looking back at his hoverboard as she walked away. He sat there for an hour before his eyes couldn’t stand to stay open any longer.

 

He woke up in one of the chairs with an awful pain in his back. He slid out of the chair and shuffled over to two notes left on the window.

Out on job. Don’t touch anything  
-Rocket  
Actually, just don’t blow up the ship  
-Rocket

“Okay then,” He huffed, pacing around in circles. He went over to the tape deck and put in one of Peter’s tapes. Technically, Harley was never allowed to touch the tapes or the tape deck, but if they were gonna leave him unsupervised, all rules were thrown out the window. Peter also had an off-brand iPod, but never used it and hid it somewhere and when Harley asked to see it, Peter had just said “The only good way to experience music is through tape” like the old man he was. The real reason why he didn’t use it was that he had no idea how to set it up, but somehow transferred all the music to tape. Harley didn’t understand it either. He put in one of the tapes and an electric guitar started ripping through the silence. He cranked up the volume as the first lyric started.

“I'm an alligator,” The speakers played the music on almost full volume.

He jumped up to his feet and stretched. He had a schedule, first, he’d train, then he’d eat whatever was in the fridge, and then he’d build until the Guardians came back. He really wanted to be a true part of their team, not just some kid that they had to babysit. He made his way to the training room, bouncing along to the music as he walked.

“Keep your 'lectric eye on me, babe,” Harley belted along with the chorus as he put up his hair and threw off his overcoat. “Put your ray gun to my head,” he then switched to humming along with the music instead of actually singing so he could still enjoy the music while also working out. He got lost in his own mind as he worked out, just thinking about how he could help the guardians. While he was swinging at the training dummy, he slipped and fell on his ass.

“Goddamnit…” He muttered, looking up at the ceiling while Brandy’s chorus rang in his ears. He pushed himself off the floor and stood at eye level with the dummy.

_“Peter, meet Harley, Harley, meet Peter,” Tony said, gesturing to both of them. Harley stared at Peter. So this was wonderboy._

_“Pleasure meeting you,” Peter smiled. He had heard all about Peter in the five years he had lived with Tony while his mother was snapped. Abbie and him had no other place to go, so most days they stayed in the guest rooms and helped Pepper and Tony around the house while they took care of Morgan._

_Tony was recovering from killing Thanos and his army with the rest of the Avengers. Harley wished he could have been there and helped, but Pepper had locked Abbie, Morgan and him in the house just in case anyone got any ideas._

_“The pleasure is all mine,” Harley said, gritting his teeth as he smiled. Ever since that day, He had been almost erased from the family all together. Whenever Peter was over, he never got any chance to do anything with Tony or Pepper and it even seemed like Morgan had forgotten him._

The dummy still sat mockingly in front of him, just begging to be punched. Just like Peter. God, he hated Peter. He gave it one last hit before heading off to get lunch.

The speakers blared over Harley’s stomping, making it completely silent. He turned down the music before grabbing a water bottle and chugging a fourth of it. He wiped a few drops off his as he made himself a sandwich out of some odd purple meat.

Harley trudged to the armory to finish his hoverboard. He decided that this time things would be different. He wasn’t going to stay put anymore. Whether the Guardians liked it or not, he would prove that he could fight for them. He didn’t need to be babysat, he needed to take action. The hoverboard just needed a cover after all.

-

“Harley, We’re back!” Quill’s voice caused him to jump. He scrambled to put away the hoverboard and replace it with a broken weapon. Peter’s head popped in from around the corner, while the rest of the Guardians went off to do their own thing. “Have you been in here all day?”

“Not the whole day,” Harley said, dragging out the ‘o’ sound in whole.

“Well,” Peter sat down with him. “Tell me about what you did,” He said, looking Harley in the eyes. Harley squinted at him.

“I fell on my ass during training,” Harley admitted. “But I know that’s not what you came to talk to me about,” Harley looked down at the broken weapon and began to fiddle with the broken parts.

“Fine,” Peter said in defeat. “What’s it like on earth?”

“You’ve been to earth,”

“Yeah but man I was only there for like, a day,”

“I thought you were from earth,”

“Yeah, I lived there when I was ten,”

“What happened?” Peter looked at the floor.

“This guy took me in, and I didn’t really realize how good he was until he was gone,”

“Oh, I’m sorry for asking,”

“Nah, it’s cool,” It became unbearably awkward.

“Movies suck now,” Harley spoke up, making Peter look up again.

“Is Footloose the best movie of all time still?” Peter smiled at Harley.

“Oh, absolutely,” Harley agreed.

“Finally! You know-” Peter started.

“Quill! Get out here, now!” Rocket yelled from the hull. Harley nearly fell out of his chair as Peter bolted out of the armory. Harley followed after him, nearly hitting the walls as he ran. Rocket was already sitting in the captain's chair with his little paws on the steering wheel.

“I picked up an emergency signal from a nearby planet,” Nebula started. “It seems urgent,”

“Yeah, it’s an emergency,” Peter said, strapping himself into a chair. Harley strapped himself into the closet seat. Drax, Mantis, and Groot were already prepared. They did two jumps and Rocket landed them nicely over lots of bickering from the whole team.

They all got up out of their seats and grabbed their weapons. All except Harley.

“Kid-” Rocket started.

“I know, I know, stay and wait,” Harley sighed.

“Good,” Rocked opened up the doors to loud shooting and screaming. They ran out, leaving Harley behind.

“Stay and wait my ass,” Harley muttered.

-

“So the ones with the robot parts are attacking?” Drax asked as he ran.

“Yeah, shoot the robots!” Rocket snarled, taking off and shooting from above. The battlefield was utter chaos, with more blood then he’d ever seen. Bullets whizzed past him, some even grazing his fur. He had taken out around ten people already, and the rest of the team were making their way through dozens. Suddenly, he heard his jetpack sputter and begin to give out. He had forgotten that the battery only lasted seven hours.

Panic started to rush through him as he looked around to see none of his team was anywhere near him as he plummeted closer to the ground. He closed his eyes and braced for impact.

It never came. The only thing he felt was the wind rushing through his fur. He opened his eyes again to see Harley’s face.

“Oh my god, kid, get back on the ship!” He yelled, waving around his arms in distress. He looked down to see a orange and pink hoverboard that Harley was barely strapped into.

“It’s okay, I can handle myself!” Harley yelled back, barely spinning out of the way of a bullet. He tapped his foot and the strap came off and he stopped the board to put rocket down.

“Have you ever fought anything?! Ever?! Do you even have a weapon!?” Rocket asked angrily.

“Yes, and yes,” Harley answered, opening his coat to show off a fancy looking pistol. Rocket rubbed his brow.

“Petty crime doesn’t count, and that is a peashooter in a battle like this!” Rocket yelled, shaking his hands in Harley’s face. Harley looked mad now too.

“You never liked me anyway! You never even gave me a chance! I’m not some stupid kid who has no idea what any of this shit is!!” Harley yelled, stabbing his palms with his nails. “I’ll show you just how wrong you are!!” He tapped his board and it lit up to life, wrapping his foot back in the strap.

“No! Harley don’t!” Rocket yelled, getting his weapon ready to defend himself and the kid. Harley had his gun ready to fire. Rocket chased after him, desperately trying to protect him, but Harley was fast as hell on his hoverboard. Rocket liked the kid, he just didn’t want him to get hurt and he also didn’t quite trust him. He was a kid, though so it didn’t matter if he liked him or not. In Rocket’s book, you don’t hurt kids or else he’d hurt you ten times back.

He was getting closer. But he was too late. He could only watch as Harley grabbed his face and fell to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeh i bet you didn't expect that lol gottem

**Author's Note:**

> so i hope yall liked it i uh will write this more often then the rest of them
> 
> huge thanks to the discord server because they helped me develop this idea a bit more!! love yall


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